Here’s the Lob City Ledger from our guy Nick Flynt over at ESPNLA.com:

Blake Griffin 7-17 FG | 2-4 FT | 11 REB | 1 AST | 16 PTS | -3

GRADE: B

Finding his offensive touches limited by the defense of Channing Frye and Markieff Morris (excluding the first quarter), Blake Griffin tried to respond by initiating out of the high post. Unfortunately for him, the Suns did a nice job closing down passing lanes. That said, Griffin still managed to maintain solid effectiveness by hitting the glass and getting out in transition.

Chris Paul 6-19 FG | 7-7 FT | 2 REB | 10 AST | 19 PTS | 0

GRADE: B-

He’s made a habit of waiting until the fourth quarter to look for his own shot, but tonight Chris Paul struggled to find his shot at all. He responded (unsurprisingly) by creating some nice opportunities for his teammates, and also attacked in the clutch. Unfortunately, tonight was one of the nights L.A. needed a complete CP3 performance.

Kenyon Martin 4-6 FG | 0-2 FT | 7 REB | 0 AST | 8 PTS | -8

GRADE: B

Caron Butler and Randy Foye hit their share of shots, but Kenyon Martin brought great intensity on the defensive end by making solid rotations and breaking up plays throughout the night. Offensively, he did a nice job when forced to finish plays, usually with the shot clock running down or with the defense quickly recovering.

Getting Physical

GRADE: C-

The refs let both teams play throughout the night, and things came to a head midway through the fourth quarter when Robin Lopez hit Blake Griffin with a flagrant-2 foul and was ejected from the game. Still, the Clips couldn’t swing the momentum to pull away. L.A. also struggled to keep Phoenix off the glass, further illustrating their troubles with the Suns.

Phoenix Suns

GRADE: A

The Phoenix Suns came into their matchup against the Clippers a half game behind the Utah Jazz for the final West playoff spot. With that in mind, there was no question of effort for the Suns. Questions did arise when Phoenix had to deal with the ball pressure of the Clippers’ defense, but they overcame the turnover issues to get a win.

I, for one, am sick and tired of watching Blake get beaten up game after game with nobody having his back. There were at least a couple of plays tonight that warranted a teammate to give back a harder than normal foul on one of their players on the next play. The flagrant warranted a Phoenix sun being hammered so hard that they got the message: go after blake and someone is going to pay. To date, nobody seems willing to put an elbow in someone’s neck or provide a take down on one of their better players. We need s tough guy to step up and slap someone in the head. Until that, Blake
Is going to be man handled on a nightly basis.

WTF

He doesn’t do anything and his teammates don’t respond either. The word is out that the Clippers are soft. Even Dudley tried to punk Blake. That’s just sad. I blame Del Negro. His style just doesn’t instill toughness.

And I’ll say this again. Del Negro needs to be gone for what is happening to Blake. He’s regressed on offense and isn’t used properly. When they foul you like that, you would expect it to awake the beast and he comes out more aggressive. But it seems like the hard fouls really take him out of the game. Which is kind of the point of them.

Clippers got punk by the damn PHX Suns. My goodness. Sad day

Old Skool Clip Fan

I completely agree 100%. You can’t let someone punk your star like that. Put in a bench player for a nice, hard foul and let them get ejected. Where the hell is K-Mart in all this??! He of all people can’t stand around and let this happen. The Suns, in my eyes, are just bush league now. What with Gortat scraping at Blake’s face, Dudley doing the “What’s up?” routine, and Lopez, it’s clear what their instructions were in the dressing room. And Gentry says they “are not that kind of team.” I know bull sh_t when I smell it.

Clips4

K-Mart is a shell of who he used to be. His reputation as a tough guy is still on the Nuggets when the Nuggets of the last few years were the most tatted up team in the league. I agree with you guys. Barkley said this on the post game too that someone has to give a hard foul back to protect Blake. The Clippers are as soft as tissue paper right now. Once the playoffs roll around and Z-Bo knows that the playoffs are more physical, if the Ciips don’t develop a backbone and hit back on some fouls to protect Blake, the Clips will be out of the playoffs in a bad way.

C L I P S E T

That’s where Kenyon Martin comes into play. Only problem is Deandre Jordan sucks and the Clips can’t afford to play without K-Mart. F*ck having someone else do something for him, Blake Griffin should really knock somebody out. The sad thing about the whole situation is that they never retaliated during the season, and if they were to do so during the playoffs it’s gonna be costly. Eh Clippers are soft. They should have made an example out of Dudley last night.

http://www.espn.com Tim

Finally a role for Gomes that he can’t screw up. Send Gomes out there on a mission. His only role for this team should be retaliation, nothing like a hard cheap foul to send a message, low-bridge somebody, block the shot attempt with your fist, clothesline someone on the breakaway, rebound with elbows out, jump on someones back, do what you gotta do to send a message. There’s a code in hoops, unwritten rules of the game. Gomes should be our designated rule enforcer, and only log minutes for one purpose. Pay-back! Imagine a switch, leaves Gomes iso’ed on Nash, Nash blows by, and exposes himself on the lay-in, go hard with the body, make it look like a basketball play, and Nash should end up in the 3rd row. Pay-back! Then, pull Gomes back out of the game until next time.

Clips4

Gomes has to earn his paycheck somehow. I’d like to see him start smacking some people around instead of him being a dead weight contract at the end of the bench.

Faux demote

As long as Blake throws bricks from the foul line, he will get fouled every which way! The hitch on the top of his foul shot has got to go.

http://www.barmapla.com FD

Like it was said above, they need KMart so he can’t do anything. Blake only needs a couple more Ts and he has to miss a game. Is Evans still sick? Maybe they can bring Sofo over to do this.

Bongstradamus

I figured we’d get through the season without a Sofo-can-solve-all-our-problems meme.

Do Houston fans still talk Fred Weis?

http://www.barmapla.com FD

I can’t help it. I just wanna see him play and his contract will be up next year I think. Until the Clippers get a center, there will always be talk of him.

Meohmy

should have laid Steve Nash out on a moving screen

MV22

Let’s hope the clippers read this blog. Maybe Reggie Evans will come back and put someone on his ass. And it should be the other teams best or second best player. Ryan Gomes is probably too soft. Also, time for Blake himself to throw some elbows around and start putting opposing teams players flat on their asses. This is a league wide, season long issue. The league is doing nothing about it. Of course improving his free throw shooting is a partial solution but in the meantime he and his teammates must take on an aggressive attitude about the problem and send messages. I’m tired of a little guard running over chirping like a bird and backing away as soon as someone moves in their direction. It’s the big man’s responsibility. Reggie Evans, DeAndre Jordan, and KMart. Yes, KMart–even if he gets suspended and even though we need him.

DeMote DeAndre

The NBA should suspend Lopez for 10 games. That would make a point. The NBA suspended Bynum for 4 games, and this was worse that what Bynum did because Griffin was in the air and Lopez came from behind and blasted his neck (a sensitive area) and then threw him to the floor. Bynum only threw his forearm into Barea’s chest. That was bad and deserved the 4 game suspension, but what Lopez did was far worse and deserves 10.

That’s the way to put a stop to this stuff . . . big suspensions. Stern has to stop being such a wimp on these things.

I definitely do not want any of the Clipper players to do anything that will get them suspended. How foolish would that be?

Clips4

DeMote, you are absolutely ludicrous. Jason Smith got 2 games for a suspension on his shoulder block of Blake. The Flagrant Lopez had on Blake last night was not that bad in comparison. What Bynum did to Barea was far worse than what Lopez did to Blake. Bynum had a good 100 pounds on Barea when Barea was in the air. You need to look at it from an objective point of view. Obviously your basketball knowledge has been suspect all season long.

L_REAZY

Plain and simple;

The Refs just don’t like Blake Griffin when it counts!

No Respect!!!!

When the likes of Channing Frye gets more calls or the benefit of doubt … its almost like the refs are getting revenge on Blake’s prima dona attitude at the start of the season.